This evening’s House session is scheduled to consider a couple of election-related bills that, perhaps surprisingly, have not been subjected to partisan wrangling. House Bills 311 and 918 cleared the House Education Laws Committee Wednesday and — notwithstanding some concerns about technology issues in the latter measure — may clear the chamber with little opposition.

Two other bills on the committee’s agenda offered a high probability for contention, and have not been scheduled for floor votes. One would have made judicial races partisan again, and another would make it easier for minor parties to get on the N.C. ballot.

The ballot access bill, House Bill 794, was shifted to a proposal that would study the idea after the General Assembly adjourns for the year. Time ran out on the committee session before House Bill 65, the partisan judicial race measure, came up.

The bill drawing the most debate had to do with requiring most campaign committees that contribute or spend more than $5,000 to file their reports electronically. House Bill 919 centered less on partisan disagreement than on potential tech issues at election time and whether campaign computers ran on a Windows or a Mac operating system.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, noted that she used a Mac, and that the current reporting software wasn’t compatible with her computer.

Kim Strach, the new executive director of the State Board of Elections, said new standards had a goal of making the software compatible with both systems by the first of the year, in time for the 2014 elections.

Rep. Elmer Floyd, D-Cumberland, said he thought the window was too short for the 2014 elections. “IT just doesn’t meet a target date,” Floyd said.

Rep. Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, said he was concerned that a computer program would crash on the eve of an elections reporting deadline. “I may be the only person in here that doesn’t like this so good,” Starnes said.

Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, said the proposal is a good-government bill.

Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake, said lawmakers would work to accommodate those potential problems by the time the bill hits the House floor.

“We don’t want anybody to get in trouble simply because of technology,” Ross said.

Another bill, introduced by Rep. Dennis Riddell, R-Alamance, would eliminate the tax form checkoff for political parties.

“The state of North Carolina has no business soliciting money on behalf of political entities,” Riddell said.

That bill now heads to the House Finance Committee.

One measure that got unanimous support was H.B. 311, a bipartisan proposal that would remove the literacy test provision for voter registration from the N.C. Constitution. The provision hasn’t been enforced since 1965 because of the Voting Rights Act.

Rep. Kelly Alexander, D-Mecklenburg, said the bill was put in the Constitution in the late 1800s to suppress the black vote.

“We’ve had a tremendous amount of progress over the ensuing century,” Alexander said.

If approved by the General Assembly, the proposed change to the N.C. Constitution would be placed on the ballot for ratification during the May 2014 primary.

Barry Smith (@Barry_Smith) is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.